


Wanderlust

by sturms_sun_shattered



Series: Illuminate Your Path [5]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Character Study, Freewill is an Illusion, Gen, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Original Character(s), Pikango visits the world, Unavoidable Prophecies, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24202141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sturms_sun_shattered/pseuds/sturms_sun_shattered
Summary: As a child, Pikango knows his future is foretold; like so many Sheikah, he has a divine path to walk.  When he fears he may break under the weight of his people’s expectations, he leaves Kakariko Village to travel to world.  Unbeknownst to him, that was always the Goddess’s plan.Can be read as a standalone.
Series: Illuminate Your Path [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603183
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	1. To Run from Fate

**Author's Note:**

> You don’t have to read any of the other works in the series to understand this...but if it interests you, I would recommend ‘Sky, It Falls’ or ‘Age of Intolerance’ because they contribute to the Sheikah story lines in this series. This is also much lighter than the rest of the series because it’s mostly Pikango going where his feet take him.

His daily studies were all Pikango had ever known. From the time he had first begun to read the Ancient Sheikah script, his mother and Lady Impa had set him to the task of learning everything there was to know of the Ancient Sheikah, their technology, and the Great Calamity that had occurred a few decades before his birth.

Impa had in her possession a book of prophecies made by the seer who had predicted the Calamity. When Pikango was born—so his mother told him—Impa saw the thick black streak that graced his otherwise pure white hair. The book foretold of many actors in the battle to come, and this simple quirk of his makeup marked him as special. Pikango was told the his role would be one of great knowledge and he was set immediately to the task of acquiring it.

At the age of eight, he had longed to play outside with the other children as they chased each other over the footbridge and down the dirt paths. Even at such an age, his daily routine was one of strict preparation to meet the path that had been set out for him by the Goddess. 

He did as his mother instructed and began each morning with a prayer to Goddess Hylia. Sometimes he prayed at the tiny effigy at the centre of the village, purifying himself with a splash of pond water before closing his eyes. Those times—when he was out of earshot of his mother—he prayed that Hylia would release him from this bond, so that he might feel the sun and the air and the grass instead of the uncomfortable seat in Impa’s stuffy hall.

By twelve—his years of prayers unanswered—Pikango tried to accept that some people were just meant to bend to the will of the divine in the service to their people. In Impa’s hall, those chosen Sheikah seemed to come and go at all times. He knew he was supposed to focus on his studies—Jerrin was much younger than he was, and she read everything with excitement and interest—but the dusty books bored him, and he could not seem to keep the legends and foretellings straight. Pikango had always been far more interested in the maps, paintings, and etchings he came across.

He had always known he was to go study with an old researcher named Robbie, but it had been an abstract plan, far off into his future. Early one spring, when he was sixteen, Impa sat down with him as he pretended to read, but secretly studied a map that predated the Calamity by almost a century. Impa’s face was gently lined with age, but her eyes still held some of the zeal of youth. Pikango had never known her age, only that she had been not much older when he was now when the Calamity brought Hyrule to its knees.

“Pikango,” she said gently, “the time has come for you to take the next step on your journey. You are to travel to Akkala tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” said Pikango in alarm.

Surely, he was meant to have more time to say goodbye to his mother and prepare for the journey.

“Olin will escort you. There’s no need to fret, he has made the journey many times and will keep you safe.”

Pikango was loathe to admit that he was a little afraid of the warrior-poet. What he knew of Olin was limited to hearsay. Pikango had never spoken to him, as he spent most of the year away doing Impa’s bidding. What Pikango was sure of was that Olin had served as court poet in Hyrule Castle in another lifetime, but he had never really recovered from the Calamity. When he returned home from his travels in the winter he was a recluse, but on those rare trips he made from his cottage to the shop, an aura of gloom surrounded him wherever he went. Pikango had even once heard a rumour that Olin was a Yiga assassin...though perhaps that meant he assassinated Yiga clansfolk.

Pikango nodded solemnly, accepting Impa’s direction with a heavy heart. He had been chosen by the Goddess to wield the sword of knowledge, as it were, and he would do as he had been sworn to. He left Impa’s hall with the weight of his fate dragging him down into misery. Perhaps this was why Olin always seemed so morose. After years of riding hither and thither on the instruction of those who held power, maybe Olin was as miserable as Pikango knew he was bound to be. Though, at least Olin got to ride across the countryside; Pikango was bound to be trapped in another stuffy building.

As Pikango packed for his travels, a wild impulse came over him to grab his rucksack and run as fast as he could. His mother entered their cottage with their evening meal, and he realized that he would be caught if he was so rash. Pikango, patient beyond his years, allowed his mind to work out a plan as he ate his evening meal with his mother and he schooled his expression into one of solemnity. His hands shook as he began to imagine his way out of destiny, and he had to clench them beneath the table so that he wouldn’t give away his plan.

“When they told me that you were special on the day you were born...I could never imagine that this day would arrive so soon,” his mother told him sadly.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” he said.

“But from whence that black streak in your hair came, I am not to know. They say that it is the mark of your importance to Hyrule, that Hylia formed you so.”

“Might it be they were wrong?” he tried one final time.

“The soothsayer’s predictions all come true,” sighed his mother, “the signs of the Calamity, the discoveries the Sheikah unearthed...even Ganon’s perversion of those machines.”

“But the Sheikah knew of these events and their attempts to prevent it only made them so.”

“Just eat,” she said, “and we’ll turn in early in preparation for your journey.”

Pikango could not have slept even if he tried. He lay in his bed until the moon was high in the sky and his mother breathed steadily in sleep. He glanced back at her—he knew that she would be pained by this, but Pikango knew no other way to escape the crushing expectation of his position. 

He carried his pack, and the eightfold blade that his father had left him as he crept silently from the cottage and slid the door closed behind him. He pulled his pack over his shoulders as made his way down the path near the rock face to the west gate. Fortune was in his favour as Steen stared at the lit torches around the Goddess statue from his post at the foot of Impa’s hall. Pikango wished desperately that he might visit the graveyard with an offering for his father, but he could not risk being caught when he was so close to freedom.

Pikango followed the path from the west gate, his heart pounding in his ears. It was so loud he felt almost breathless and wondered if it echoed off the high rock walls on either side of him. As he reached the end of those protective cliffs he stopped and gazed out at the serenity of the clear night. The winds blew gently across the Sahasra Plain, sweeping the grass like currents in water. Pikango glanced back at the only home he had ever known one last time and set out on a new path.


	2. Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pikango commences his journey with a naïve sense of freedom and begins to learn that the world outside of Kakariko Village might not be the ideal he seeks as he stumbles from one place to the next.

Pikango wandered down the Sahasra slope, enjoying the sound of the gentle breeze and the way the moonlight glinted off of the long grass. His heart still raced from his daring escape, but an unfamiliar feeling squirmed in his stomach. He realized it was excitement—he was finally in control of his life, destiny be damned.

As the night wore on, something caught his eye and he strayed from the footpath to investigate. When he approached, he realized it was a burnt-out building. Perhaps that assessment was a little generous; all that remained of the building were a few charred hardwood supports. 

It was the three moss-covered Guardian stalkers that most piqued Pikango’s interest. They stood, a testament to the Calamity which he had lived in the shadow of his entire life. Though they were still as stone, Pikango was struck for the first time by how real they were—how tall and menacing they must have been as they smashed and burned this building. Perhaps it had been someone’s home, he realized sadly. 

As he stared at the way the moon glinted off of the exposed bits of the Guardians he wished he might preserve this sight and share it. Though many of the Sheikah in the village had lived through the Calamity, it was rarely discussed openly. He knew only from the notes Impa had made him read that his own father had borne the Hylian Champion part of the way to the Shrine of Resurrection. Perhaps it might be a sobering reminder for those who were too young to remember that fateful day of the lives that were lost.

He touched the cool surface of the Guardian between the patches of moss and realized that he had tarried here far too long. As soon as he failed to meet Olin at dawn, he could be assured that Impa would send the warrior-poet after him.

With a renewed sense of urgency, Pikango picked up his pace to the edge of the uneven slope and stood on the grassy top of a crag. The moon was still high in the sky and its silver light rippled across the wetlands below. If he squinted, he could see the warm glow of lanterns through the woods beyond the edge of the swamp. Recalling the maps he had studied realized that it must be Wetland Stable.

The best way through was straight across, he supposed. He tightened the straps on his pack and ensured his blade was secure in its sheath and carefully climbed down the rocky slope. He realized it was steeper than it looked the moment he began his descent, but he managed to keep his footing until he was nearly at the bottom. His palms scraped the stone as he scrabbled for purchase. He slid to the foot of the crag his body slamming hard against the ground below him.

He tried desperately to breathe in for a moment, wondering if he was about to die before he finally sucked in a huge breath. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees and realized that this was probably what the weapon master meant by getting one’s wind knocked out. He brushed the damp dirt and grass from his clothes—the Sheikah fabric repelled the stains as easily as it did water—and set out for the lamplight that guided his way.

oOo

By the time that Pikango arrived at the stable, the sun had bathed the sky in red light before it ascended above the dreary cloud cover that had moved in as the night wore on.

“Welcome to Wetland Stable,” called the manager, “if you need a rest we have beds inside, or you can use the cookin’ pot.”

“I thank you,” said Pikango.

He sat down near the cooking pot near a short, dark-haired woman dressed in similar garb to the stable master and with the same bound hair that hung in front of her ears. She seemed as interested in Pikango’s Sheikah garb and severe topknot as he was of her outfit.

“Don’t see many Sheikah out here,” she said.

“We do rather like to stay at home,” he agreed as he pulled the mushrooms he had collected from his pack.

“You big fans of poison mushrooms, too?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.

“Have you never collected mushrooms before? Look at the gills,” she said taking a mushroom from Pikango’s hand, “if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you don’t want to chance it with white gills.”

“You don’t have a book that might tell me about mushrooms, do you?” Pikango asked cautiously as she threw the poisonous ones into the fire beneath the pot.

“A book? Don’t know many who can read something as long as a book,” she said.

Pikango must have read hundreds of books, scrolls and other documents in his life—though the subject of the history of Hyrule and the Ancient Sheikah had hardly prepared him for a life on the road. The stable hand sighed, seeing his expression.

“Where are you headed, anyway?” she asked.

“I’m not really sure...west. As far west as west goes,” he said.

“Tell you what,” she said, “I’ll show you some good mushrooms and if you ever make it back from the west, you can bring me some Tabantha wheat.”

“Certainly,” agreed Pikango, shaking her outstretched hand.

“Name’s Rosah by the way.”

“Pikango.”

Rosah spent an hour collecting mushrooms with Pikango in the woods behind the stable. They fried them with a little butter and salt and added a little Hyrule herb for texture. As the rain started they ran into the stable with their meal. The stable master—Eron—shared in their meal as they sat at the round table together.

“You look like you’re just a kid,” Eron said.

“Well...”

“Course it’s hard to tell with Sheikah, what with the white hair,” he amended. 

“I’m perfectly capable of travelling on my own,” Pikango assured him flatly.

“Well...if you’re sure,” said Eron.

“What is the best way to go west to Tabantha?” Pikango asked them.

“I wouldn’t cross Hyrule field if were you,” said Rosah, “the treasure hunters who sneak into the castle say there are a few Guardians who are still kicking around out there.”

“I thought all the Guardians were destroyed when Princess Zelda awoke her sealing power,” said Pikango.

“What the hell are you on about?” said Eron.

“I’ve been studying this topic for many years,” insisted Pikango.

“Well, shows what you know. Fancy book-learnin’s gonna get you killed,” Eron warned him.

“What he means to say,” said Rosah, fixing Eron with a glare, “is that it’s dangerous out there. If you want to go west, follow the river south to Riverside Stable then take the road toward the Great Plateau. You can follow it west to Outskirt stable...after that...maybe if you’re lucky some of the old roads are intact, but there are no stables beyond the Outskirt Stable.”

“Right,” said Pikango, eager to be on his way.

“Are you really going out in that storm?” asked Rosah.

“Sheikah clothing is quite rain-proof,” he assured her confidently.

“Don’t you want to rest?” she asked.

“Those endurashrooms have filled me with energy. I thank you for all or your help,” Pikango said, shouldering his pack and heading south from the stable.

oOo

Pikango walked along the squelchy riverbank well into the night. He would rest when he reached Riverside Stable, he decided. While the mushrooms had kept him walking at a steady pace all day, he was beginning to feel the weight of two sleepless nights. 

He saw the horse-head effigy atop the stable just as the sun was cresting the horizon. Invigorated by the sight, he picked up his pace and skirted the riverbank that extended almost to the edge of the stable. As he approached the door, he saw a familiar figure donning a cloak over his Sheikah stealth garb. It was Olin.

His heart racing, Pikango ran for the only cover he could see—a lean to full of crooked stacks of hay bales. Praying that Olin had not seen him, Pikango dropped to the ground and slithered in between two bales to wait out the warrior-poet. As Olin spoke to the stable master, Pikango watched him and tried not to cough as particles of sweet hay tickled his throat. 

Fortunately, Olin was simply awaiting his horse. When the stable hand passed him his reins, Olin led the horse away from the stable and mounted with the grace and celerity of a much younger man. As Pikango watched Olin nudge his horse into a trot heading north, he let out a sigh of relief. He stayed in the hay for a few minutes longer, waiting for the sound of the hooves to disappear up the road. Just as he was about to crawl out from his hiding space he heard the sound of a pitchfork tearing at the bales.

“Wait, stop!” he shouted.

As he pulled himself from the bales his pack was caught on the ones above and he was stuck half-in and half-out of the hay. The stable hand—a boy on the brink of adolescence—shouted in surprise and dropped his pitchfork.

“What are you doing in there?!” he yelled at Pikango.

“Trying to get out.”

“You could have been hurt, you jackass!”

“Pender, you little weasel,” hollered the stable master, “who are you shouting at?”

“This fool’s nearly made a murderer of me!”

“I’ll go,” said Pikango, as he dragged himself out of the hay, “I should be on my way anyway.”

“Wait. Are you Sheikah?” asked Pender, staring at him.

“Why?” asked Pikango, his heart pounding.

“That other Sheikah...he was looking for you...yeah, it’s definitely you he’s looking for. He said we’d know you by the black streak in your hair...”

“He’s uh...” Pikango had to think of something quickly, “he’s my uncle...and he wants me to...marry his wife’s sister’s daughter.”

The lie sounded ludicrous even to him. Pender stared at him, his freckled nose crinkled in confusion.

“What?”

“Yeah...I don’t want to marry...her,” Pikango continued unconvincingly.

“Eldis always said you Sheikah are crazy.”

“You see, that’s why I’m running away!”

“I think I still need to tell Eldis...”

“What can I give you so that you won’t give me away?”

“Are you trying to bribe me?” Pender asked incredulously.

Pikango pulled a red rupee from his pack and held it out to Pender.

“Is it working?”

“Try purple,” said Pender shrewdly.

“A red and a blue is the best I can do.”

“Fine,” sighed Pender.

“I’m heading south,” said Pikango, “what’s the best way to go?”

“If you don’t want to be seen?” Pender mused, “there’s a raft at the dock. Some guy left it and the went and died trying to make it into the Castle...at least I assume he’s dead. Make sure you get off before you get to the waterfall. I’d get off at Proxim Bridge—it’s the one made entirely of stone. From there you can go east or west, or even further south if you want.”

“Thank you,” said Pikango, dropping the rupees in Pender’s hand and running for the dock.

oOo

Pikango lay back on the raft as it drifted steadily down the Hylia River. He wished he had thought to pack better rations than a few carrots and the still green apples he had picked on his journey between stables. He squirmed uncomfortably; his stomach growled and his body ached with fatigue. There was one thing of which he was certain—if Olin was out giving his description at stables, Pikango would need to make himself less conspicuous. 

Pikango sat up as he saw the stone bridge ahead. He realized he had no way to steer the raft and decided he would have to jump for the shore. As he shuffled carefully to the edge of the raft, water sloshed over the corner. He stood still for a moment, his knees quivering a little as he calculated his next move. Pulling his pack and weapons belt tight, he jumped toward the shore.

He missed dry land by quite a bit, his feet sliding in the silt of the riverbank. He clawed his hands into the muddy bank as he leaned forward and felt the river washing around him. He realized in that moment that he should have probably not chanced something like this, having never learned how to swim. Digging in with his fingers and feet, he pulled himself up along the slick, stony riverbank until he reached the grass.

His clothes were as comfortable as ever once the cold water had rundown his pant-legs, but his pack had taken on some water. He was about to dump it when he heard the sound of a woman’s scream. He clamoured to the top of the grassy knoll to see where the sound was coming from. 

In the ruins below, a young Hylian woman fought a red moblin with a short sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. The moblin had hold of her long, brown braid of hair and Pikango drew his eightfold blade, ready to leap into action without sparing a thought for his own safety.

He ran, his eyes locked on the woman as she sliced through her hair with her dagger and struck a deep blow across the moblin’s snout with her sword. Pikango hollered as he ran in, only to be swept aside by the beast’s long arm. His sword clattered from his grip as he struck his head against the crumbling masonry of the ruin wall. With the beast distracted and bearing down on him, the woman was able to dispatch it in short order.

Pikango shielded his face as viscera fell around him and the horrid stench of moblin filled his nostrils. He looked up to see the woman staring at him in clear annoyance, her hair falling around her face from what remained of her braid. She held her sword a hair’s breadth from his chest.

“Are you stupid or somethin’?” she asked, her bucolic accent more pronounced than in the other Hylians Pikango had met.

“You screamed! I just wanted to help!” he told her, eyeing the point of the sword that brushed the cream-coloured fabric of his tunic.

“I screamed ‘cause that bastard had hold of my hair,” she said, “tell me your name, where you come from and your mission.”

“Pikango, from Kakariko Village. I have no mission.”

“From Kakariko Village? Are you Sheikah?”

“Yes,” he told her.

Pikango wondered if she had already come across Olin and he was about to be marched back to Kakariko Village at the end of her sword.

“Never met a Sheikah,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “though I have heard you are a treacherous folk.”

“If it helps you to trust me, I’m trying to leave them,” he said, unnerved by the wild views the Hylians seemed to have of his people.

“Don’t know,” she said.

“You are right to be wary on the road,” he said, “but I promise that I mean you no harm. I’m simply travelling west.”

“There’s nothin’ west,” she said.

“Then I suppose I shall see if that’s true.”

“Well, _Pikango_ —if that really is your name,” she said, sheathing her sword and picking up his, “I don’t exactly have a set destination either.”

She offered him her hand and pulled him to his feet. Pikango saw they were of a height and she looked as though she was not very much older than he was.

“This is a nice blade,” she said, examining his sword as she scooped it from the ground, “too bad you don’t know to use it.”

She flipped it in her hand and presented him with the leather-bound grip. He took it cautiously and slid it back into its sheath.

“I’ve trained with a weapons master,” Pikango told her indignantly.

“So you probably have pretty form, but have you ever fought against anything you’ve had to kill before it kills you?”

“Well...”

She sighed and rubbed at her temple as though she was coming to a decision she sorely regretted.

“Pikango...d’you want to travel with me...so you don’t get eaten?”

“I couldn’t impose,” said Pikango.

“Alright. See ya, kid,” she shrugged, collecting her pack from where she dropped it in the ruin.

“I was just being polite,” said Pikango, following after her.

“Oh Goddess, you Sheikah are strange.”

“How should I address you?” he asked as she bent to collect her scratched wooden shield.

“As ‘Lita,’ ‘cause that’s my name.”

oOo

That afternoon, Lita shot a duck with her bow and cleaned and plucked it. Pikango watched her with a horrid fascination as they sat near a fire she had built in a part of a ruin.

“Never done this before?” she asked.

“Most of my time was focused on research,” he told her.

“What’s that about?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just...look at books?” she asked, poking a sharpened green stick through the quartered pieces of fowl.

“Mostly.”

“That sounds pretty boring.”

“It’s why I left,” he said.

“You left out of boredom?” she asked incredulously.

“It’s more complicated than that,” he said vaguely.

Lita placed the meat to roast on the makeshift spit.

“How did you come to be fighting moblins in the ruins?” asked Pikango.

“I left home. I grew up in the Highlands, but my father wanted me marry this guy twice my age...so I grabbed my sword and left. Haven’t looked back since.”

“How do you survive on the road all on your own?” asked Pikango.

“I kill monsters on the roads between the stables. They let me stay at the stables and have food and drink when the weather gets bad. Sometimes if I take out a colony they even pay me.”

“That sounds quite difficult.”

“Can’t put a price on livin’ your life the way you want to,” she shrugged.

As she fed the fire and tended the meat, Pikango decided that he rather liked Lita’s philosophy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what I'm hoping for here is a a bit of a 'fish out of water' story that is also a journey of self-discovery for Pikango. Perhaps I've put it in the notes already, but this is sort of the happier sibling of 'Age of Intolerance' (not mandatory reading), but for anyone who has been following my fics I sort of have this problem where I have like 2 or 3 fics on the go at any one time and I only post when I am happy with the chapter...so posts will remain erratic.
> 
> Anyway, if you've made it to this point, thank you for indulging me :)


	3. Chiaroscuro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pikango continues his journey with Lita and learns that life on the road is not as easy or idyllic as he thought it would be.

Pikango and Lita set up camp in the partial shelter of the ruins of the outpost complex. Lita had taken first watch that night and woke Pikango when the moon was high in the sky.

“You try anything funny and I’ll gut you like a fish,” Lita warned him, as she bedded down near the fire.

“Try what?” Pikango asked her.

“Anything handsy,” she said.

“I’m aware that Hylians think Sheikah custom is strange, so at the risk of alienating us even more—physical exchanges are quite...restrained for us.”

“You don't even know what I’m talkin’ about do you?” she said, her brow knit in disbelief.

“How about...I keep my distance?” suggested Pikango uncomfortably.

“Just don’t let me sleep through a moblin attack.”

As Lita slept, Pikango put a little more wood on the fire. He found a decaying torch in some rubble and lit it. It worked as well as anything, so he searched through the ruins of the outpost, hoping to find some clues about what life here had been like. He knew from reading Impa’s account of the Calamity that this outpost had probably been occupied right up until the disaster levelled Central Hyrule. 

Pikango climbed the remains of a staircase to get a better look at the complex of ruins. In the moonlight he could see that they stretched nearly to the river. If fully occupied, the lives lost here must numbered more than people that Pikango had ever met in his life. 

He hopped down from the staircase to what must have once been sleeping quarters if the scraps of decaying fabric and collapsed bed-frame were any indication. As he idly toed through the debris, he heard a rough metallic sound. Bending down with his torch, he saw a small rusted case amidst the pebbles on the stone floor. He lifted it up to find it was about the size of this hand. Intrigued, he tried to open it, but the corrosion had sealed it shut.

With something to occupy him, he returned to the fire, making sure to keep a good distance from Lita. He rested the sputtering torch in the fire and scrubbed at the little metal box. Beneath the layers of oxidization that sloughed off in flakes, the metal remained intact. Each time he shifted to box, he could feel something moving back and forth inside.

Lita groaned in her sleep and rolled over.

“How are you this noisy?” she grumbled from her bedroll.

“I’m sorry. May I borrow your dagger?” Pikango asked her.

She slid her hand under the edge of her bedroll and pushed it across the broken cobbles before pulling her blanket up over her head. Pikango used the dagger to pick open the rusted latch on the box. The tiny hinge broke and fell away and Pikango pried open the case.

The rust had not penetrated the interior of the container. Inside, there were five wrapped pieces of charcoal and a folded piece of paper, brittle with age, but miraculously untouched by moisture. Everything had been perfectly preserved in the airtight container as if untouched by time. Pikango carefully unfolded the paper to find a simple sketch in charcoal of a nightshade flower.

Just like the night he had found the Guardians, he felt the familiar chill of realization. Though he knew people who had lived through the Calamity—Kakariko Village was full of them—it had always felt abstract. Staring at the sketch in his hand—as present and urgent as if it had been drawn only moments before—Pikango felt the acute sadness of loss, though he didn’t know for whom.

He scaled the remainder of the loose rust off of the case and replaced the charcoal and delicate sketch inside and left it sitting open in front of him. He pulled his leather-bound notebook from his pack and opened it to a blank page. After testing the charcoal in the corner of a page filled with inked notes on Guardian parts, Pikango attempted a sketch of the staircase that rose over the place where he had found this wonderful treasure.

oOo

“I have to be honest with you, Pikango,” said Lita as they walked, “this doesn’t really look much like a bird.”

“Surely, it does,” said Pikango, catching the notebook she handed roughly back to him, “you see it has wings, and a head, and legs.”

“If you say so.”

“It’s easy to be dismissive when you haven’t tried it yourself,” he told her crossly.

“You want me to draw you a bird?” she asked acerbically.

“Yes.”

“Fine,” she said gesturing for him to pass her the book.

He handed it over with a piece of the dwindling charcoal and Lita sat down on a rocky protrusion. She sketched quickly and confidently, glancing up at the herons that perched across the broken cobble road near the plateau wall for reference. Pikango peaked at her assured strokes as she cleaned up the lines and smudged in some shading.

“That is better,” Pikango acknowledged a little glumly as she returned the book.

“You draw like a child. Have you never drawn anything?” she said, shouldering her pack once more.

“I’ve never had the opportunity.”

“How is that possible?”

Pikango opened his notebook and showed her the tiny scrawled notes which covered each page from top to bottom.

“I left sixteen of these behind.”

“What does it all say?”

“You can read it if you wish.”

“I think we may come from very different worlds,” she said flatly, “while you were learning to hold a quill, I was learning to hold a sword.”

“You mean...you can’t read?”

“Not a word. I can’t even sign my name.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well don’t be,” she snapped, “I’m not the one who’s going to be monsters’ supper.”

“I could teach you,” suggested Pikango.

“No thank you. I don’t need the charity of a Sheikah.”

Pikango stopped in his tracks at the aggression in her voice. Did Hylians really despise them so?

“Lita, as you say...I’m bound to be eaten because my swordsmanship is lacking. Let’s put aside what Hylians or Sheikah ought to do and just go forward in peace.”

“You think you can just smooth anything over with your fancy words?” she asked as she stopped at the fork in the road.

“No. I came along because you offered. I thought I might try having a friend.”

“What?”

She turned to him, her brow wrinkled in clear annoyance.

“I see I was mistaken,” he said, downcast.

“Perhaps if we travelled together for a long time, we might be friends,” she sighed.

“But now?”

“I’ve known you all of two days.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, no longer wishing to expose his ignorance of how people were supposed to relate to one another.

“I have to clear a colony before we head to Outskirt Stable. Maybe you can learn how to defend yourself a little better.”

“Alright, but if I do,” he said, “I’m going to show you how to write.”

“Whatever makes you happy.”

oOo

The colony was nestled against a rock which jutted from Hyrule Field. It stood two rickety levels high, made of boards salvaged from a nearby ruin. Lita had quickly dispatched the two bokoblins who had wandered over to the ruin before they made their way here. Lita was so methodical in her dealings that Pikango supposed she must have done this countless times before. 

Pikango held his eightfold blade in his slick hand as he crouched behind Lita. She knelt behind a rock, her simple wooden bow notched with an arrow as she waited patiently for her shot.

“I’ll pick off the two at the top,” she whispered, “then we get the two on the ground together.”

Pikango nodded.

When Lita had her perfect shot she took out the first bokoblin without hesitation. Her second shot did not land. Instead the arrow buried itself in the wooden boards. The bokoblin on the upper level squinted out at the source of the arrow’s path. He grunted at the bokoblins below, alerting them to their presence.

“Damn. Get ready,” she said, shouldering her bow and drawing her sword and dagger.

Lita ran into the fray to meet the first bokoblin and Pikango ran in after her to meet his charge. He parried the creature’s wooden spear easily, but he could not help himself from being distracted by the sound of a bokoblin’s death squeal behind him. His glance cost him the upper hand as the bokoblin swung the simple wooden spear above its head and cracked Pikango across the ear with it.

His head ringing, Pikango found his footing and lashed out at the creature in a fit of anger, the likes of which he had never felt in his life. He grasped the splintery spear in one hand as he fought to control the bokoblin which held the other end of it. Though he had not fought any but his peers with dulled edges as they practised, Pikango’s strike with his eightfold blade was as fluid and sure as if he had done this very thing a hundred times before.

What came after was not something that Pikango had prepared for. The bokoblin shrieked in pain and collapsed to the ground. As it fell to pieces, Pikango felt his knees give out beneath him. Between the terrible ache in his ear and the realization that he had just lost control in the heat of battle, he could not seem to keep himself upright.

He felt the urge to be sick as he gazed at the fangs and horns that remained on the ground in front of him. He fought back the dry heave, but could not stop himself from weeping. He had killed. Surely, it was just a monster, but even to have killed a creature of such wretchedness made Pikango’s heart ache.

“Pikango, I found some arrows. Maybe we—”

Pikango glanced back to see Lita on the stairs, proudly showing off her haul. Seeing him sitting in the dirt near the putrid rubbish heaped beneath the structure, she leapt from the stairs and skidded to a stop in front of him.

“Hey, what happened? Where are you hurt?”

Her hands probed him for injury and he pulled away from her, angry that she had goaded him into this.

“I’m not injured,” he snapped, wiping at his eyes.

“Your ear’s bleedin’,” she said, turning his face with a hand on his jaw.

“Stop touching me!”

He pushed away her hands, grasped his fallen blade and stood unsteadily. It took him three tries to return the eightfold blade to its sheath as he stumbled out from beneath the bokoblins’ lookout. He took a few shaky steps down the road, towards the rotting wooden houses before he began to regain his momentum. She followed him.

“Pikango, just tell me where you’re hurt,” she insisted, “your head?”

“I didn’t want to do this!” he shouted.

“What?”

“I didn’t want to be a killer!”

“It’s a bokoblin. He’ll be back the next time there’s a blood moon,” she said disbelievingly.

Pikango dragged his sleeve across his face as he made for the shelter of the long abandoned settlement to the south. The sun was the golden-orange of early evening, but he could not appreciate the stunning beauty as he came to grips with the feeling that he had crossed a line within himself. It was clear that Lita did not understand the conflict he grappled with as he returned to the shelter where they had left their packs.

He sat down on the ground and rummaged through his pack, looking for something to clean the blood from his face. Lita knelt in front of him once more, pulling a folded handkerchief from her bag.

“Here,” she said, holding it against his ear.

He took it over and she sat back against the precarious opposite wall. The room was so narrow that they could barely stretch out their legs without touching the opposite wall. Though he was still stinging from the sound the bokoblin had made as it died, Pikango was beginning to calm down.

“Are you alright?” she asked him seriously.

Though dizzy from the blow to the head, he nodded.

“I’m sorry if I pushed you...I know we won’t travel together for too long and...I just wanted to know you could handle yourself when we part ways.”

Pikango saw her expression was one of sincerity.

“I suppose on the road we don’t have the luxury of wondering whether or not it’s right to kill monsters,” he sighed.

“Nope.”

“I didn’t think I would be so affected,” he admitted, a little ashamed of his outburst now that his hands had ceased shaking.

“It’s alright. Just remember...they come back with the blood moon, but you don’t.”

Pikango nodded.

“I can take first watch if you need to rest,” she offered.

“That would be appreciated.”

She got up to collect some fallen branches for a fire and Pikango unrolled his bedroll lengthwise in the narrow structure. He lay on his back and stared at the purpling sky through the hole in the roof. He could hear Lita scraping her dagger across a flint trying to strike a spark.

“You know,” she said as she sat down near him, “if you wanted to show me how to write my name...I wouldn’t mind knowing...”

“Of course,” he promised.

oOo

Pikango’s head and ear still ached from the blow as they resumed their journey the next day. They took the road north and west where it forked toward another ruin.

“Why are we leaving the road?” ask Pikango as they wandered through the quiet of the stone ruin, the buzzing of insects and chirping of birds the only sound in the pleasant morning.

“We’re takin’ the long way round,” said Lita, pointing out at the field of high grass and tiny blue flowers.

“I thought you had to be at Outskirt Stable,” protested Pikango as he followed in Lita’s trail through the grass.

“I don’t _have_ to be anywhere I don’t choose to go,” she said, making for a rocky hill ahead of them.

As Pikango made his way through the open field, he was struck by the diverse beauty of Hyrule. In the west his could see red snow-capped mesas, their smooth tops glinting in the late-morning sun. He pulled his sketchbook from his pack.

“If you really want a good look, we should get to higher ground,” suggested Lita.

Delighted, Pikango followed her up the steep hill. As they reached the top, Lita held up her hand for silence and pointed at the two moblins that sat near the remains of a cabin. He should have known that Lita had an ulterior motive.

“You see the swords they have?” she whispered, stashing her pack in a dip in the rocks.

Pikango nodded; he suspected he knew where this was going as Lita drew her bow.

“That’s good steel; knight’s swords,” she told him, “better than this piece of shit anyway.”

She gestured to her own nicked and dented sword.

“Did you know they were here?” Pikango whispered angrily.

“Had a hunch. Look, you help me with this and we’ll split the profits.”

Pikango sighed and set down his pack reluctantly; it wouldn’t hurt to earn a few rupees. Lita grinned when he acquiesced and notched an arrow in her bow. Pikango drew his blade quietly as Lita took aim at one of the lethargic beasts. Her arrow landed, striking the moblin close to the eye and embedding in the flesh. The creature howled a low roar as it clutched its face. The second looked around in alarm as Lita’s arrow scraped by its shoulder. Her next arrow stuck in the moblin’s leathery hide and it was then that it saw them.

Pikango’s heart was pounding as the creature lumbered toward them, its companion still grappling with the pain of the arrow in its face. He gripped his eightfold blade and parried the wild swing of the moblin’s blade. While it was distracted with Pikango, Lita delivered a death-blow to the creature and dashed on to the one with the arrow in its face. Pikango was once more left ankle-deep in viscera as Lita finished the second moblin with a careless slash across its throat.

“We make a good team,” said Lita, picking up the moblin’s discarded sword.

Pikango picked up the long-sword that he had parried mere moments ago. His arms still hurt from the forceful blow.

“You mean, I make a good distraction,” he said indignantly.

“This is just how it is on the road,” said Lita, pulling a bluish organ from what remained of the moblin she had bested.

“Lita, are we really taking that with us?” Pikango asked, covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve.

“It stinks,” she agreed, “but there’s a woman who makes elixirs at Outskirt Stable, and she’ll buy it from us.”

Pikango gagged a little as Lita slipped the guts into a leather pouch that looked as though it had transported many a disgusting ingredient.

“I just wanted to sketch those mountains!” Pikango said, dropping the sword beside Lita’s pack.

He grabbed his pack and stalked away from the stench of the moblin remains to sit near the rocky peak. It overlooked and immense tree stump, surrounded by water. Committed to at least trying to have his way, Pikango pulled out his charcoal and notebook and tried to sketch the mournful way the pine branched drooped on the trees which lined the lake.

After a while Lita came to sit with him, the whiff of moblin still on her.

“It’s hard for me to understand why this upsets you,” she said at length.

Pikango ignored Lita. He couldn’t get the charcoal to translate the image of the trees onto the paper, but he made the attempt the whole of his focus.

“Pikango.”

“You tricked me,” he said, setting down the notebook.

“Didn’t think you’d come if I told you what this was really about.”

He held his aching ear and cast Lita a dark look.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m used to doin’ things my own way. I’ve never travelled with anyone before.”

“Is this just all it is?” Pikango asked, “I have to grow callous and hack my way through life out here?”

“No...I just don’t know any other way to make a livin’,” she admitted.

Pikango kept his gaze on the landscape below, not yet willing to forgive Lita.

“I haven’t got enough for a horse,” she said, “so I keep tryin’ to show them at the stables I can be just as good a monster hunter as Kal.”

“Who’s Kal?” Pikango asked darkly.

“He’s a guard for Outskirt Stable. He hasn’t seen any more summers than I have, but...he’s tall and he looks the part. I asked about the job and they said they’d think about it...fuckin’ Kal comes out of nowhere and they just, hire him on the spot. Gave him a horse and a good blade and weekly pay.”

“And you were left out on your own...”

“Yup. I get to scrounge for moblin guts,” she sighed.

Pikango was slowly beginning to realize just how difficult life on the road could be. Lita—though admittedly short of stature and gruff of manner—was surely one of the most skilled fighters he had ever seen.

“I don’t want to ambush any more monsters without my knowledge,” said Pikango.

Lita nodded her agreement.

“Well...I want to wash the moblin off of me. Shall we?”

Pikango agreed and they made their way down the hill towards a tiny bridge which crossed a stream that branched off of the Regencia River. Pikango could see the remains of a cabin on the shore.

“Who do you suppose lived there?” he asked Lita idly.

“Who knows,” she shrugged, the wooden board of the bridge giving slightly beneath her feet.

“Don’t you wonder about such things? About the people who were lost in the Calamity?”

“Why? Doesn’t do them any good. Besides, world’s full of ‘em.”

Pikango realized as much as he appreciated Lita’s stance of freedom, they had very little in common. The ruins of an age past simply slid by her vision as a blade of grass or restless cricket might; for Lita, they were not evidence of something that came before, but an immutable part of the landscape.

Across the bridge, they found the what remained of a bokoblin camp. Lita stripped off her leather cuirass and pulled up her shirtsleeves while Pikango observed the pile of bones and rotted fruit rinds near the cooking pot. Flies circled around a pile of bones that looked disturbingly familiar to Pikango.

“Do bokoblins...eat people?” he asked.

Lita was scrubbing her arms and hands with sand and water. She scrubbed her face a little as well and Pikango wondered if she was avoiding the question.

“Lita?” he prompted.

“Do you really not know?” she asked, standing and wiping water from her face.

Pikango stared at her.

“You’re such an innocent...I hate to be the one tellin’ you all this terrible stuff.”

“I may not have travelled the world, but I’m not a child,” he said indignantly.

“Not as a rule,” she said, “people fight back with weapons...but monsters’ll take meat wherever they can get it.”

Pikango stepped back from the decomposing filth.

“C’mon,” said Lita, refastening her leather armour, “if we take this path we’ll be back on the road soon.”

In sight of the road Lita suggested that they sit beneath a tree while they ate their midday meal. Pikango—though still chilled from what he had seen at the bokoblin camp—took out his sketchbook and charcoal and tried to depict the tree that stood alone on a stony hill across the river.

“If you’re still willing to teach me...” Lita hazarded.

“To write?” asked Pikango.

“Nothin’ fancy, just my name. I might like to leave it a few places.”

Holding his apple in his mouth, Pikango spelled out Lita’s name on a blank page.

“Just copy this below,” he said, passing the book over to her.

Lita copied her name over and over. She was not so clumsy with the charcoal as Pikango had thought she would be.

“We should reach the stable well before supper,” said Lita.

Pikango’s heart sank a little at the reminder of where they were going. Olin was on horseback and there was every possibility that he had made it to the there before them. As Lita gathered her swords and gear, Pikango sat silently.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

“I have to tell you something.”

“Go on.”

“Will you promise not to turn me over to the Sheikah?” he asked.

“Oh Goddess, are you a criminal?” she asked, “I knew there was something wro—”

“I haven’t committed any crime, not by the laws of man at any rate,” he said quickly.

She sat down beside him,

“Well then, what is it?”

“I’m trying to run away from my destiny,” he said.

“Well aren’t you important,” said Lita, clearly unimpressed.

“There’s this book of predictions, and it’s all very complicated,” Pikango told her hastily, “but it meant that I had to spend every day studying books that bored me when all I wanted to do in my heart was to see the world outside.”

“So you ran away?” shrugged Lita, “you don’t need to tell me that.”

“Well, what you really need to know is that there’s someone looking for me. He’s a Sheikah, pretty old with a gloomy expression. He’s been going to all the stables...I may have to run again.”

“How will they know you’re not just some other Sheikah?” she said.

“Most Sheikah don’t have a tell-tale black streak in their hair,” said Pikango.

“You could change the colour of your hair,” said Lita.

“Really?” asked Pikango skeptically, “how?”

“I dunno, I just heard people do it in Hateno sometimes.”

“Well...I suppose I’ll be out of Olin’s reach soon anyway,” said Pikango, standing and shouldering his pack.

oOo

They reached the stable late in the afternoon. Pikango did not go unnoticed, but it was only on account of the rarity of having a Sheikah visitor. Perhaps Olin thought that Pikango was not so foolish as to venture this way, or perhaps he had simply not yet made it this far. In any case, Pikango wasn’t going to stick around for more than one night to find out.

As Pikango honed his newly acquired mushroom-gathering skills, Lita haggled with the elixir woman. Pikango returned to find her at the cooking pot, looking dissatisfied.

“What’s wrong?” Pikango asked, dropping the herbs and mushrooms into the pot.

“Weapons dealer won’t come by for another two days,” she said, “she had to take off...tend to her father.”

“What will you do?” Pikango asked.

“Hang around I suppose,” she shrugged.

Lita waved at one of the stablehands and gestured, a moment later she was presented with two ceramic cups of cider. Pikango stared at his and back at Lita.

“Never had cider before?” she asked.

“In Kakariko Village we make plum brandy,” said Pikango.

“Well, here’s to your first cider...and apparently your first friend,” said Lita, holding up her cup.

Pikango stared at her in surprise and then grinned as he giddily realized what she meant. He raised his cup to her and they drank in companionable silence. Though the day had been full of new and strange realizations for Pikango, somehow spending the evening at the peaceful stable with a cup of cider and a friend helped to wash away some of the horrors of the world beyond.


	4. Beyond the Outskirts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pikango journeys north.

The dawn came wreathed in cool mist. The earliest rays of sun skimmed over the rocky hills and valleys and lit the front of Outskirt Stable in a golden glow. Pikango awoke before Lita, his ear still ringing from when the bokoblin had struck him. It didn’t help that he had tried to keep up with Lita as she drank her fill of cider the night before. Now, his stomach felt sour and his head ached. He glanced at the next bed where Lita was sprawled in sleep, her blanket tangled in her legs and sliding to the floor. He smiled to himself, recalling that she had called him ‘friend’.

Pikango pushed himself out of bed and sought out the well at the back of the stable. He drew some water to splash over his face and neck and to fill his water skin. The sun was not very high in the sky, but Pikango could already see the mist burning off as he sat down near the cooking pot.

“You’re an early riser,” yawned Lita when she eventually joined him.

“I think I must set out,” said Pikango sadly, “the longer I tarry, the more likely Olin is to find me.”

“We haven’t sold our swords,” she protested.

“Keep my half,” he told her, “buy your horse.”

“Pikango, are you sure?” she said, conflicted.

“I’m quite sure,” he assured her.

He checked his provisions and shouldered his pack as he stood.

“Must you go so soon?” she asked.

“Have you grown so fond of my company?” Pikango asked.

“Well, I drew you a bird. Perhaps I want a drawing back.”

Pikango set down his pack and pulled out his notebook, as he was about to tear Lita’s drawing from the book she stopped him.

“I want that one,” she said, pointing at his laughable attempt at a heron.

“You said it was terrible.”

“It is...but if I should need to smile...”

Pikango carefully tore the sketch from the book and passed it to Lita as she stood to bid him farewell.

“I hope we meet again,” she said sincerely.

She reached out and wrapped her arms around Pikango. Unused to this kind of contact, his body stiffened, but he eventually melted into the hug as he returned it. He felt as though his heart was bursting with happiness.

“So do I...friend.”

oOo

Pikango followed the road north, admiring the lush trees. He was surprised by the dragonflies which zipped about, the sun shimmering off of their chromatic bodies. The weather grew warm and humid as the day went on and dark clouds amassed in the sky. By mid-afternoon the rain still had not come and Pikango’s legs were aching for rest. 

As he looked up at the grassy hill ahead of him he saw what appeared to be a statue of a horse. Curious, he climbed the hill to investigate. He could not believe his eyes when he saw that the parkette seemed to bear no damage from the Calamity. He climbed the slightly mossy stairs to find a small gravity-fed fountain, still flowing away as if it was tended daily. His eyes caught a tiny plaque with a patina of green, affixed to one of the cornerstones of the retaining wall that divided the upper and lower levels.

“Sanidin Park.”

The wooden boardwalk was slightly slick from humidity in the air as he followed it upward to observe the horse statue up close. He started when he noticed a Hylian man holding his horse’s reins and staring out across Central Hyrule. His horse whickered and danced a little when it saw Pikango and the man caught sight of him.

“Greetings, stranger,” he said, “I hadn’t thought I would see anyone in such a remote spot.”

“Nor I,” agreed Pikango, taking a step toward him.

“My name’s Lusson,” he said, extending his hand in the way that Hylians did when they greeted someone.

“Pikango,” he said, hesitantly returning the firm handshake. 

“Do my eyes deceive me or are you from Kakariko Village?”

Pikango nodded as he withdrew his hand.

Lusson’s manner of speech did not have the rough edges of Lita’s. His clothes were made of fine material, his tunic dyed a rich forest green beneath the embossed leather cuirass. His weapons looked both better crafted and less worn than any of the travellers that Pikango had seen at the stables. He carried a round, cylindrical case strapped diagonally across his back and wore round, wire-framed glasses. Lusson kept his greying hair cropped rather shorter than the Hylians Pikango had encountered thus far.

“Are you from Hateno?” Pikango guessed after accounting for his manner and dress.

“That’s right,” said Lusson warmly, “our villages owe much to each other in both trade and exchange of knowledge.”

“Have you visited Kakariko Village?” asked Pikango as Lusson tied his horse at one of the cast-iron hitching posts.

“I acquired some maps there a number of years ago...you see, I’ve been sent out by my brother to try and map this area.”

“Whatever for?” asked Pikango.

“He’s the head of the Stable Association. He wanted to know if any of the stables from before the Calamity were still around so...”

Lusson hesitated and Pikango just stared at him.

“Well, it’s not like they have any competition,” Lusson sighed, “and my brother is insufferable; all he thinks about is rupees. He wants to buy out any stables that still run independently, but every stable marked on the maps has fallen to nothing or is inhabited by monsters...well there is rumoured to be one, but it’s on the Tabanthan Tundra! Who would want to go there?”

Pikango nodded at Lusson’s sudden rant, not entirely sure that he had understood any of it. He had the impression that Lusson had grown lonesome in his travels.

“Maybe you could help me,” suggested Lusson, unslinging his map-case.

“I don’t see how,” said Pikango as Lusson rifled through the case.

“You’re Sheikah, am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know any Sheikah very well...there’s that mad one who lives at the top of the hill, but she wouldn’t spare a moment for anyone...I suppose there’s Master Olin, but no one really knows when he might visit Hateno...”

“You know Olin?” asked Pikango cautiously.

“Everyone in Hateno knows Olin. He’s something of a legend; after the Calamity he brought five children from Castle Town safely to our gates, even though he himself was gravely injured.”

Pikango had read Olin’s account of the Calamity. For a poet, Pikango had thought that Olin’s description of events was rather bare and impersonal. It read almost as a list of the destruction that Olin had encountered on his escape from Hyrule Castle to witnessing Princess Zelda overcoming the Guardians in Blatchery Plain. It had mentioned the effects of his radiation burns from the Guardians with clinical dispassion, and it certainly hadn’t mentioned any children.

“What is it you need the skills of a Sheikah for in particular?” Pikango asked, refocusing Lusson.

“A couple of these maps are in Ancient Sheikah script...I wonder if you might translate them?”

“I-I could,” said Pikango.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay you,” Lusson assured him cheerfully.

“Alright,” Pikango agreed, taking the maps that Lusson handed him.

As he worked on the translations, Pikango sat on the boardwalk where the stone segment of walkway dipped a little into an observation level of sorts. Even in the cover of dark clouds, Hyrule looked beautiful and peaceful, save for the dark skeleton of Hyrule Castle at the centre of it. Pikango wished that he had been able to see the gleaming stone of the Castle before Ganon’s malice had perverted it.

Lusson took his horse to graze, chatting to Pikango the whole time as he set up camp under a tree in the shelter of the masonry that retained the observation wall. Pikango finished the translations and returned the maps to Lusson, who handed him a small purse. As Pikango pulled open the drawstrings he was astonished.

“This is far too much,” said Pikango.

“Please,” said Lusson, “my brother is financing this expedition, and any chance to waste Nikalph’s time and money is not only my duty as a brother, but as a firm believer that—if you’ll pardon my language—he’s a greedy jerk.”

Pikango tried to hide his smile. After enduring Lita’s profanity-laced threats, Lusson excusing his mild insults made for quite the amusing contrast.

“Please, Pikango,” offered Lusson gesturing to the skewers of mushrooms he had roasting over the fire, “come share in my meal.”

Pikango hesitated. This man knew Olin as a hero—though Pikango had a difficult time believing the dour old poet would ever have done anything so selfless—and he worried that he might be given away. As it was, Lusson already knew Pikango’s name and description. If his journey was to end in capture, perhaps there was nothing that could be done about it, so Pikango joined Lusson’s camp for the night.

oOo

The next morning, when Lusson told Pikango he was headed north, Pikango replied that he was headed west. Lusson shared a map with Pikango, and showed him that they would take the same road for a while, and Pikango agreed to travel with Lusson in the interest of safety. 

In many ways, Lusson was a better travelling companion that Lita: he shared stories from his village, of his children, and his travels; he showed Pikango his maps and happily explained what he was doing while he worked; best of all, Lusson never went out of his way to engage monsters in battle. Even so, Pikango found a small part of him missed Lita’s brash impulsiveness, and a much larger part missed having a friend nearer his own age.

They travelled together at a leisurely pace for two days. Lusson rarely rode his horse, and they stopped frequently so that he could amend his maps. Pikango didn’t mind the stops; he sketched the various angles of Sartori Mountain (though they all looked the same on the page) and the rings near Jeddo Bridge (which looked on paper like a crowd of circles and squares). It was late afternoon on the second day when they reached the fork that trailed west to the Seres Scablands and north through the Breach of Demise.

“I think I shall camp here tonight,” announced Lusson, “I fear to walk through the Breach of Demise in darkness.”

Pikango glanced west at to the mushrooming pillars which seemed to grow like fungi from the swamps which shimmered orange in the afternoon sunlight. He turned to look north the tapering stones that jutted from the ground and the trabecular pockmarks which covered them.

“Lusson,” said Pikango, “would you mind very much if I joined you on the road north?”

“Of course not—Hylia knows I’m happy for the company—but why the change of plan?”

“I go where my feet take me,” shrugged Pikango.

They gathered some fallen sticks from the nearby trees for a fire and Pikango sat down on the hill to try and draw the mushroom pillars as Lusson put together a meal. For all that Lusson hated conflict, Pikango had learned that he was a good shot with the bow and his favourite game was fowl. As Lusson roasted skewers of pigeon with mushrooms and spicy peppers, Pikango grew displeased with his sketch and set his notebook in the grass in frustration.

“What’s wrong?” Lusson asked.

“I want to draw—to capture the essence of the places I’ve been—but I can’t seem to do it. It’s as though my eyes see this wonderful, strange beauty in the world, but my hand doesn’t listen.”

“Perhaps I can help,” said Lusson, gesturing for the book.

Lusson looked at Pikango’s sketch, flipping back through the pages. He considered them thoughtfully and without the scorn that Lita had looked upon them. Lusson picked up the charcoal and gestured for Pikango to watch him.

“When you look at the pillars,” said he said pointing with the charcoal, “your mind knows that they are circular on top, but your eyes don’t see a circle,” Lusson elongated Pikango’s circles in to ovals on the page, “this is how you represent the look of a circle from an angle.”

Lusson handed Pikango back the notebook and Pikango tried to replicate Lusson’s technique. Though, his strokes with the charcoal lacked the confidence of Lusson’s, his pillars began to look a little truer to life.

“That’s the way,” Lusson encouraged, “you’ll only get better with practice, so don’t give up.”

No one had ever spoken to Pikango like this before. When he had been instructed in his reading it was not with the supportive tone that Lusson adopted, but with the unyielding reprimand that he lacked discipline. Lusson may have recognized something of this in Pikango’s eyes because his expression softened.

“How many summers have you seen?” he asked.

“This shall be my seventeenth,” said Pikango, seeing no reason to lie.

“Your parents must miss you terribly.”

“My father died when I was quite young,” Pikango told him a little dismissively.

“And your mother? A mother misses her child at any age.”

Pikango had not thought of his mother’s feelings when he had left. He only knew that her restrictive adherence to Impa’s demands was part of what had made him miserable in Kakariko Village. He didn’t wish that she should suffer, but he had been smothered under her care.

“My mother will be fine,” he said, though perhaps it was meant to be a balm to his own selfishness.

“The folly of youth—to feel so passionately about all things and not recognize the feelings of those around them,” sighed Lusson as he stoked the fire.

Pikango was annoyed that Lusson seemed to believe that Pikango lacked empathy, and had little to say to the man as they ate and bedded down for the night. After his annoyance for Lusson’s condescension wore off, Pikango began to feel guilt for leaving his mother with no indication of where he had gone. He could go back, but he knew to take such a risk would have him trapped in Kakariko Village until he was old and grey. She would recover, he decided, and he would remain free.

oOo

The journey through the Breach of Demise was not nearly so harrowing at Pikango expected. The strangest part was the emptiness and the way the wind howled as it blew over the bones of the world that extruded from the ground. The path through was clear and free of hurdles and they reached the other side by mid-afternoon.

That night, they set up camp along the foot of Lindor’s Brow. As they ate the mushrooms and the remainder of their spicy peppers, Lusson examined his maps.

“It looks like we can easily reach Maritta Exchange tomorrow morning. Nikalph wants a stable near whatever might remain of it.”

“It sounds like your brother wants to restore Hyrule to its former self one stable at a time,” said Pikango.

“No matter how altruistic the outcome may be, Nikalph is motivated by money alone...but it’s hard to deny the symbolism in reclaiming our territories.”

“Then where will you be off to?”

“Further north still,” said Lusson, catching the hot mushroom that fell from its skewer, “to follow the road that loops around the Tanagar Canyon. If you wish to join me, you must be outfitted for a cold journey. There is a farming settlement north of here where we might find provisions.”

The next morning, they visited the ruins that were marked on the map as an exchange. Pikango could see the moblins lumbering through the crumbled stone walls and bokoblins scrambling through their patrols with a more restless energy.

“Well...this is what remains,” sighed Lusson.

“Surely, your brother can’t mean to build a stable here. It seems to be rather infested.”

“Indeed it does,” Lusson agreed, “perhaps we might find a suitable location a little further north.”

As they followed the road north, Lusson marked a small forest of pine trees on his map as a possible location for a stable.

“They would have the wood readily available,” he reasoned as he roughly sketched the area, “and they could likely provide a defensive perimeter.”

“I see why your brother sends you to do such work,” said Pikango as he sketched the blackened shrine which sat nestled on Salari Hill, “you seem to have an eye for planning.”

“He’s trained my the entirety of my adult life to be this way,” said Lusson with some bitterness, “all I have I owe to him, and he makes sure that I never forget it.”

By evening, they had reached a small cluster of houses on Rowan Plain, surrounded by fields and pastures. Lusson knocked upon the door of one of the homes and spoke to the farmer inside while Pikango held his horse. When he returned, he looked pleased.

“I’m told that there is a house only a short walk north where a widow rents out her loft to occasional visitors, and tomorrow—if you still wish to accompany me—we can secure you a horse and proper attire.”

Pikango agreed, excited that he might see those mountains north of here at close range. By sunset they had reached the little cottage. Lanterns sat flickering atop two posts out in front of it and Lusson knocked upon the door. He was met by a tall woman, of an age with Lusson if the long, greying braid that hung down her back was any indication.

“Might we purchase a place to sleep for the night?” Lusson asked.

“You appear to be neither hunters nor shield-surfers,” she said suspiciously.

“I’m a cartographer,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I make maps,” he said.

“Well,” said the proprietress, “I’m Hopal, my son will see to your horse.”

A youth of an age with Pikango wordlessly took the reins from Pikango. He wore a long braid similar to his mother’s, and Pikango could see that his hands were already rough and hard from hard labour. Pikango glanced down at his own soft hands, pale and stained with dirt and charcoal from his travels. Pikango followed Lusson inside where Hopal offered them a humble meal of meat and vegetable stew and a piece of hearty bread. Pikango thought it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.

Hopal pointed them to the ladder that led up to the loft. It was a slightly damp level, lit only by the lamp that Pikango carried. There was a small, spoked half-circle opening at one end of the loft that served as a window and several mattresses. The room smelled slightly musty, like old straw, but Pikango was was too tired to care. He spread his bedroll upon one of the mattresses and fell asleep almost immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’ve read ‘Age of Intolerance’ you’ll know that Nikalph is the head of the Stable Association...and he’s a dick...and also a pig. Quick rundown of his crimes: was a sexist asshole to Jerrin, literally only hires Kass because he can fly, stumbles around Hateno making a nuisance of himself because no one can say anything to the richest man in the village (perhaps all of Hyrule?), treats all of his employees as disposable, and did not seem to care that people died in the attempt to set up Akkala East Stable. So Lusson spending the discretionary funds on a Sheikah translator...I’m good with that.
> 
> This is about Pikango, but very much like the early chapters of ‘Age of Intolerance’ it’s also about fleshing out post-Calamity Hyrule. I’m fascinated by the every day lives of people living in Hyrule...so I’m writing it...with Pikango going to places where Kass couldn’t.


	5. Snowed In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pikango and Lusson set out to Tabantha Snowfield.

Pikango awoke as the shaft of early morning sun that shone the half-window warmed his face. Lusson remained asleep in his dark corner of the loft, his map-case tucked under his arm. Pikango crept down the ladder to see that Hopal and her son were already awake and preparing for the day. Hopal ladled up a small bowl of hot cereal and added a pinch of salt and drizzle of courser bee honey for Pikango. He wasn’t sure what grain had been used, only that it wasn’t rice, but he enjoyed his breakfast perfectly well.

“Do you know where I might by clothing suitable for travel in Hebra?” Pikango asked her as he ate at the small wooden table.

“There’s a seamstress up the way,” said Hopal, “might be that she can fit something for you.”

“Thank you,” said Pikango, finishing up his bowl, “please let Lusson know where I’ve gone when he wakes.”

Pikango left Hopal’s home and followed the road north. The houses looked quite similar to one another, all of aging wood with flattened animal horn set in the windows in the absence of glass. Between the homesteads, stretched fields where farmers and their children were already hard at work on their cold weather crops. There were several pastures where sheep grazed, and a small stable where two women carried water in to the horses.

Pikango reached the farmhouse he took to be the seamstress’s by the sign in front. The sign was a bit of aged wood hung on a post near the road with shirt painted on it in peeling paint but no writing. Pikango knocked on the door and was met by the tallest woman he had ever seen. Her long hair looked almost pinkish where it greyed around her temples, and she wore it bound in a braid down her back like Hopal and the other villagers.

“Are you the seamstress?” Pikango asked, looking up at her.

“I am,” she said.

“I’m looking for cold-weather gear...might you be able to help me?”

“Certainly,” she said, “please come in.”

“Bit early for customers, isn’t it Sonasa?” asked the old man who sat at the table.

“You eat your breakfast, you old fool,” she said affectionately. To Pikango she said, “my husband, Dagan. Let me see if I can find anything that might suit you.”

As Sonasa retreated into another room of the cottage, Pikango was left with the old farmer.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance...?”

“Pikango,” he supplied.

“Now, you look to me as though you are from the Sheikah tribe,” said Dagan.

Pikango nodded, wondering if this meant he was about to be turned away.

“Your lot haven’t travelled this far in years.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I haven’t seen any of your people since I was a child in Castle Town. I wondered if perhaps you hadn’t survived the Calamity.”

“You lived in Castle Town?” asked Pikango in fascination.

“My father was a gardener at the castle,” he said proudly.

“How did you escape the Calamity?” asked Pikango.

“Didn’t. I had already left. Ran away with my first sweetheart when we were scarcely eighteen...of course, first love is never what it’s cracked up to be; it’s the last love that’s most important,” he said, smiling fondly at Sonasa as she returned with her arms full of garments.

“Is he bothering you?” she asked Pikango, then without waiting for an answer, “Dagan, this young man does not want to hear about old folks in love!”

Pikango could not stop the grin that crossed his face at the warmth of this old couple; he had never seen anything like it among the Sheikah who were restrained in their public interactions.

“Now,” said Sonasa, rifling through the pile, “I should have something in here to fit even a little voe like you.”

“Voe?” asked Pikango, wondering if he had just been insulted.

“Man,” supplied Dagan, “the Gerudo Tongue dies hard.”

Sonasa had begun to hold jackets up to Pikango’s back as Dagan spoke, testing the length of the sleeves against his arms.

“Are you like to grow much more?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” he said, “my father was not a tall man, nor were any of my uncles.”

“Then I would suggest this one,” she said.

Pikango held up the worn set of clothing. The knees and elbows were patched with leather that appeared rather newer than the scarred leather cuirass that accompanied the set, but Pikango was most intrigued by the feather-like shoulder guards that topped the outfit.

“You’ve been trying to push off that old Rito thing for years!” said Dagan “Pikango’s a nice kid and that thing is nearly as old as I am!”

“This is Rito-made?” Pikango asked, “I thought the Rito perished in the Calamity.”

“I image they made that before the Calamity. No one’s seen any Rito since then...hell, no one’s seen much of anybody!”

“Would you like to see something else?” asked Sonasa, “I have a variety of gear traded by shield-surfers.”

“No...I like this one,” said Pikango, tracing his fingers over the worn leather.

“Go, try it on,” said Sonasa, ushering him into the next room, “let me see if I need to make any alterations.”

Pikango struggled a little with the cuirass, but when he had pulled on the outfit, he found that it fit as well as anything, and the trousers tucked neatly into his laced travelling boots. He stepped out to show Sonasa who pulled fussily at bits of it, asking if he wanted it hemmed or taken in.

“I think it’s alright,” said Pikango as she pleated the trousers at the hips with her fingers and looked from side to side to check that it was even.

“He said it’s fine!” called Dagan, “no one expects perfection!”

Sonasa sighed and stood up.

“One hundred and eighty rupees,” she said.

Pikango dug through his purse and paid her fee, strangely elated to have ownership over something that had not just been given to him, even if it was as old as legend. As Pikango turned to leave the cottage he caught sight of the paintings that adorned the walls. Hopal’s humble cottage did not have such fine things.

“You in the market for a painting?” asked Dagan.

“What?” Pikango asked, confused.

“Sonasa paints them.”

“They’re incredible,” Pikango told her sincerely, staring at the warm tones of sand and shaded rock, “never in my life have I seen such wondrous places.”

“This is the beauty of my homeland,” said Sonasa, “so different from these cold, green lands.”

“When next I pass this way,” Pikango promised, “I shall return, and tell everyone I meet along the way of your remarkable talent.”

“You are far too kind,” said Sonasa.

“Why couldn’t our kids be this polite?” asked Dagan.

“Likely, because you raised them,” said Sonasa.

“Might you know of anyone who is selling a horse?” asked Pikango.

“You might check next door with Russa,” said Dagan.

“Thank you for your kindness,” said Pikango.

“Farewell, and pleasant journeys,” Sonasa wished him.

Pikango loosened the Rito tunic as he strode along the fenced-in pasture to the next homestead. He could see Lusson was already there, haggling with a farmer in a brimmed sunhat. Lusson paid him his purse and took the reins of the horse.

“Pikango, Hopal told me...Goddess, your apparel is as old as Hylia herself!”

“You needn’t have bought a horse for me,” said Pikango as Lusson handed him the reins.

“I’m hiring you on behalf of the Stable Association as my assistant,” said Lusson as he mounted his horse, “you need a horse to do this job, so you can consider it advance payment...that is of course if you still wish to join me?”

The horse danced a little as Pikango pulled himself—a little inelegantly—into the saddle. It was so rare that he had gone anywhere, he did not have very much experience riding.

“I’ve never had a job before,” said Pikango as he sat stiffly in the saddle and nudged his horse into a walk.

“Well, this one is quite simple: you help set up camp, manage the horses while I draw my maps, and—if the worst should happen—you deliver this letter to my wife and daughter in Hateno,” he said drawing a flat, sealed paper from the breast of his cuirass.

“How long is the term of this contract?” asked Pikango.

“Let us say a year?”

“I can agree to that.”

As they rode north toward the twin peaks of Mount Drena, Pikango found he came to rather like the idea of having a plan for the next year. Lusson seemed to be a generous employer and was bound to ride through lands that Pikango had never seen. Perhaps, if he enjoyed it, he might be the first Sheikah to make a career at the Stable Association.

They rode through the flat, green farmland for most of the day without stopping and set up camp in the foothills of the eastern peak of Mount Drena. Nestled in the rocks, the wind was not so harsh as it had been on the road, but the cold of the region made Pikango’s ear ache. It took both of them to get the fire started, Pikango shielding the kindling from the wind as Lusson struck a spark.

Pikango tended the fire as he sat among the rocks, charcoal in his shaking hand as he tried to determine how he would capture the vast, exquisite emptiness of the world above the Tanagar Canyon. As the sun set it turned the clouds shades of apricot, pink and dark purple. Pikango wondered if he should dabble in the medium of paint to best capture the breathtaking landscapes. 

Lusson returned with the pigeon he had shot and sat down beside Pikango as he began to pluck the feathers from it in quick handfuls.

“You should learn to do this,” Lusson told him, “let’s take it a way from the camp so we don’t attract predators.”

Pikango followed Lusson a little ways away from their fire where he finished plucking and cleaning the bird. Pikango was not eager to take on the task himself anytime soon, deciding he might opt for scrounging mushrooms and herbs if he were to be left on his own. As Lusson skewered the bits of meat onto a sharped stick, Pikango returned to his attempt to capture the awe-inspiring desolation of their surroundings.

oOo

They set out at first light the next morning. Lusson feared being trapped in the knee-deep snows of the Tabantha Snowfield overnight. As their horses plodded along the barely visible road, Pikango found he agreed with Lusson. The snow that fell in Kakariko Village in the winters was not usually very deep; the greater danger tended to be the ice that formed when the snow would thaw and freeze again. In Hebra the snow piled high and compacted under the weight of itself. The new snow that fell atop the old was light and fluffy atop the hard crust beneath.

The cold of that land was astonishing, even as the sun shone brightly in the clear sky. The freezing air blew down from the mountains and across the plains, bringing with it biting shards of pellet-like snow that stung Pikango’s exposed face. For all of its harshness, there was a certain monochromatic beauty to Hebra. The white-barked trees stood out cleanly against the clear blue of the sky above. the clusters of pines shimmered with with the same crystalline flakes that cut at Pikango’s skin, and every surface seemed to glimmer with dangerous beauty.

They reached the stable by nightfall, exactly where Lusson’s map said it would be. The inn certainly looked as though it had been through the Calamity; it was square and squat, with tiny windows, secured with cured animal skin. The aged wood had turned grey, and ice formed around cracks between boards and near windows where heat from inside had escaped to melt the snow. The chimney smoked away, but Pikango could see that some of the stone had fallen away from the external part of the hearth. 

The stable was made of the same greying lumber and seemed almost to be held up by the woodpile stacked in a neat pyramid at its side. Snow had built up along the edges of the walls, but there was a path worn to the dirt beneath in front of the half-door.

Outside, an elderly woman wrapped in a tattered and faded cloak tended a large fire between the stable and the road. The sound of wood being split echoed in the air, though Pikango could see no one doing the chore. As they approached the stable, she straightened to meet them.

“Greetings, strangers,” she said, “what news from the wide world?”

“No news, I’m afraid,” said Lusson, “though I’ve come to inquire about your stable.”

“Beds are forty rupees a night, you get dinner and we’ll stable your horses,” she announced, “Monkton! Get out here and see to our guests.”

“We have guests?” asked a middle-aged man as he came out from behind the stable with a hatchet, “it’s not shield-surfing season yet.”

“You hunters?” asked the old woman, “no, you don’t look like hunters.”

Lusson dismounted and Pikango clumsily followed suit, his thighs and back aching from the long ride.

“Actually, I have a proposal that may be of interest to you,” said Lusson as Monkton took his reins, “but it might be better discussed over food.”

Inside the small cabin, there were two bunk beds tucked in a corner and a loft above with a narrow set of steps leading up to it. A small, square table and four chairs of rough-hewn wood sat in front of the stone fireplace at top a large, curiously blue hide which covered the floor. The rustic walls were decorated with horns and animal skulls.

The woman introduced herself as Idah as she spooned out bone broth into wooden bowls and offered slices of heavy bread to Pikango and Lusson. The broth was slightly oily and garnished with herbs and the bread was a little burnt on the bottom crust, but Pikango ate both without complaint, dipping the stodgy slice into the broth to soften it.

“Let us cut to the chase,” said Lusson as Idah and Monkton joined them at the table, “I’ve been sent to negotiate on behalf of the Stable Association.”

“Never heard of it,” said Idah.

“It was established only a decade or so ago. Since then, we’ve been setting up a network of stables across Hyrule to make travel and trade more accessible.”

“Is this a warning that you’re coming to our territory to compete with an independent stable? Try and drive us out of business?” asked Monkton suspiciously.

“Our proposal would be to purchase and take over operation of this stable,” said Lusson, “you would of course be welcome to remain in our employ.”

“Sounds like a load of townie horseshit to me,” said Monkton.

“This isn’t a trick,” said Lusson, pulling his small notebook from his jacket, “it’s quite apparent that you’re operating on very thin profit margins. This is what we’re willing to offer you.”

Lusson wrote a number in the notebook and passed it to Monkton. Monkton closed the book without even looking at it.

“I think you’ve misunderstood,” Monkton said, “we aren’t out here for profits. This is our livelihood, not our business and we don’t want no folk from some overgrown farming village telling us how to live our lives.”

Idah reached out for the book that Monkton had dismissed with such surety and opened to the page where Lusson had scribbled his offer.

“Son, perhaps you ought to actually read this,” she said.

“Father didn’t build us a life here so that we could piss it away for a few rupees!”

“Look,” said Lusson, “I understand if you need some time to think on it. Let us retire for the night and we can revisit it in the morning.”

Monkton made a noise of disgust as he stalked up the stairs to the loft. Idah returned to the notebook to Lusson.

“It was a very generous offer,” she said, “you have your choice of bunks this evening.”

Pikango and Lusson left the table, taking their packs to the corner where the bunks were. Pikango had never slept at such a height and was eager to try out the upper bunk.

“How do I get up here?” he asked Lusson.

“Put your hands on the post and pull yourself up,” Lusson shrugged.

Pikango gripped the top of the rough wooden post and used it to vault into the bed. As his back hit the mattress he heard a crack and was left wondering what had happened for a moment before he realized the slats had broken beneath him and he had fallen through to the bed beneath. He lay dazed among the splinters and torn straw mattress, the smell of dry rot and damp straw in his nostrils as Monkton shouted at him from the loft above.

“Are you alright?” Lusson asked.

Pikango nodded, so Lusson stood to confront Monkton.

“Don’t shout at my assistant,” he said, “it’s clear that you’re having trouble with upkeep, let us help you.”

“I would never turn away a guest for the night,” said Monkton, “but you’d best be on your way come sunrise.”

Hesitant to attempt the other bunk, Pikango decided to sleep on his bedroll on the floor while Lusson took over the lower bed of the remaining bunks. Idah was apologetic over her son’s lack of hospitality, and brought Pikango an extra feather-pillow.

“Nikalph won’t accept no for an answer,” said Lusson as the fire died down and the cabin grew cool.

“Perhaps he’ll reconsider,” Pikango offered.

“Men like Monkton rarely do...I’ll consider our options. You’d best get some sleep.”

oOo

The next day was strangely warm for the cold of Hebra, and Lusson pointed out that summer had begun. As they rode back along the road north, the ground had grown slick from the slow melt as the temperatures rose above freezing. They reached the hairpin loop around Tanagar Canyon in the early evening and were dismayed to see that the road was completely blocked by snow which had slid down from the mountains.

“What happened?” asked Pikango in dismay.

“It looks like there was an avalanche...we have to turn back.”

“I doubt that Monkton will be well pleased to have us back at his door,” fretted Pikango.

“The man never turns away paying guests,” said Lusson, “and we can pay. We might be able to take the road south to return home.”

The ride back to the stable grew harrowing as the temperature plummeted that night. The gentle melt of the day turned the road to ice, and Lusson and Pikango had to lead their horses for safety’s sake. Pikango’s travelling boots had felt perfectly warm in the seamstress’s shop, but now he could feel the cold radiating from the frozen ground up through the soles.

“I’ve n-never felt such c-c-cold,” Pikango said through his chattering teeth.

“Nearly there,” Lusson promised.

“You said that n-nigh on an hour ago!”

“Just keep walking,” he encouraged.

It took nearly an hour more, which felt like an eternity to Pikango’s frozen body. When Lusson knocked upon the cabin door, Idah answered, her grey eyebrows raised in surprise to see them once more.

“Monkton,” she called, “come get these horses!”

“You again!” said Monkton in irritation.

“An avalanche has covered the north road,” said Lusson, “we need shelter and rest.”

“Come, come inside,” said Idah, taking Pikango’s arm.

Idah pulled two chairs close to the low, burning embers of the fire and threw on a few small logs. Pikango unlaced his boots, trying to get the warmth to his skin which burned with cold. Idah boiled water and steeped herbs for them to drink and offered warm blankets to wrap around their shoulders.

“Goddess damned fools!” said Monkton as he returned, “better than you have been killed testing the weather out here!”

“Thank you for once more taking us in,” said Lusson.

Monkton made a dismissive noise and retreated to the loft. 

Pikango could not handle the hot tea which Idah had offered him. He set it on the table and held his hands near the ceramic to thaw his aching fingers. She offered them the bunks once more—the top bunk which Pikango had broken had not yet been repaired, but the splinters and straw had been swept away. Pikango cautiously wrapped his hands in his blanket and took the cup to the bed with him, where he sat in the musty blankets, trying to decide between staying warm and falling asleep.

“Pikango, you’re going to spill your tea,” said Lusson as Pikango’s body began to lose the fight to fatigue.

Pikango sipped at the hot liquid, trying to finish as much as he could before he lay down. In the end he set the lukewarm cup on the floor beside the bunk and let himself drift off in a pile of blankets.

oOo

They stayed at the inn for two nights while they recovered from their ordeal. Pikango slept late into the first day and felt out of sorts when he awoke. He left the small inn to find Lusson helping Monkton chop firewood in a bid to ingratiate himself with the crotchety innkeeper. Pikango returned to the inn, oddly anxious to be on his way once more. When the four of them sat down to an evening meal, it appeared that Lusson’s naturally innocuous personality had inflamed Monkton’s ire rather than building any sort of understanding.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, you slick bastard,” Monkton said, pointing his spoon at Lusson, “you think you can butter me up and I’ll sell? Better men than you have failed at less.”

“I assure you, this is not a ploy,” Lusson said disinterestedly.

“ _‘A ploy’_ ,” Monkton mocked, “you fancy folk are all the same. You think we’re out here because we’re stupid and poor. Maybe we’re out here to get away from the likes of you.”

“Monkton,” sighed Idah, “Pikango and Lusson are our guests and ought to be treated with respect.”

“Then I respectfully ask that you leave tomorrow at sunrise and never darken our doorstep again.”

Pikango and Lusson set out early the next morning on the south road. Pikango was grateful to be away from Monkton’s anger, even if it was directed at Lusson and not him. As they rode through clusters of snow-covered evergreens and glistening white-barked birch trees, Lusson fretted about the road ahead.

“The maps says there is a village ahead, but by all accounts, it was destroyed during the Calamity,” said Lusson.

“We’ve seen our share of ruins,” said Pikango, “why does this one worry you so?”

“The road runs right through it; we can’t avoid it as we have other ruins. Who can say what we may find there? You’d best be sure your blade is ready in hand.”

The day grew grey and cloudy and snow fell softly in fluffy flakes as they reached the point where the road cut through a pass in the foothills of the Hebra range. Lusson halted his horse and Pikango came to a stop beside him. The road sloped down to what Lusson’s map indicated once would have been a village. If he squinted, Pikango could see great, dark masses through the heavy snow.

“Are those houses or monsters?” asked Pikango.

“I don’t know. Stay on your horse; we’ll ride quickly and calmly through.”

Pikango nodded his agreement as he settled himself in the saddle and gathered his horse’s reins in his hand. They had just passed through the broken fence that must have once served as a village gate when their plan went awry. A sudden fiery explosion on their right sent the horses into a panic. Lusson’s horse bolted down the road and Pikango’s threw him in terror.

Stunned from the fall, Pikango tried to get to his feet and draw his weapon when he saw a moblin bearing down upon him. He fumbled with his blade and the moblin struck him with such force that he did not realize what had happened until he landed limply on the slope down to the canyon below. He slid down the rocky hill, tumbling gracelessly until he landed on the flat stone below where the snow was thin. He had hit his head with such force during the fall that he thought he would be ill. When he opened his eyes, it was to see two icy lizalfos descending upon him. His body was in such pain that he could barely lift an arm to defend himself.

Around him, the world once more seemed to be filled with fiery explosions, whistles and screeches. Pikango closed his eyes against the sudden brightness and curled over on his side. When the fire had cleared and only the smell of brimstone still hung in the air, Pikango cracked his eyes open to make sure he was still in one piece. The mild, grey daylight seemed to shoot straight from his eyes through the back of his skull and he shielded his eyes with his hand.

“Goddess, it’s a Hylian,” came a voice.

“I’m not a Hylian,” he tried to protest, but he choked on the taste of blood in his mouth.

“If we expose ourselves, the elder will pluck us alive.”

“He’s injured...”

As Pikango felt someone drawing near he moved his hand from his eyes a little to see russet feathers blowing in the wind that howled through the canyon below. He reached up unsteadily to touch the wing that reached out to him, his fingers barely grazing the soft feathers and fine bones beneath.

“Pikango!” came Lusson’s call accompanied by the sound of horse’s hooves.

The wing was quickly withdrawn and one of the Rito whistled in alarm at the sound of Lusson approaching.

“Don’t go...” Pikango whispered as he heard the sound of beating wings.

He though he might have fallen asleep for a moment, because when he awoke, Lusson was urgently tapping his shoulder.

“Hylia, I thought you’d died!” he said.

“The Rito,” whispered Pikango.

“It’s alright,” said Lusson, his voice shaky with panic, “you don’t have to talk. We’re going back to the inn.”

“But...Monkton...” Pikango attempted through the metallic taste in his mouth.

“Let me worry about Monkton.”

Lusson felt his legs and arms for breaks and Pikango wanted to scream as Lusson’s hand brushed his side. He shifted with sharp intake of breath that only made the pain worse. A pathetic sound escaped through his clenched teeth and Lusson drew his hands away.

“Was that your arm?” he asked.

“Ribs,” Pikango gasped.

“Just stay still. It looks like you hit your head pretty hard,” Lusson said gently probing the area, “but I don’t think you’ve fractured it.”

Pikango held Lusson’s sleeve in his quivering hand and closed his eyes. As the rush that had accompanied the attack subsided, he realized that he had never before been in such pain in his life.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” Lusson promised him, “but I’m afraid your horse has fled. We’ll take it slowly.”

Lusson helped Pikango sit up and took his pack. As Pikango got onto the horse—mostly under Lusson’s power—he nearly doubled over and Lusson arranged his pack so he could lean forward upon it. Pikango tried not to weep as Lusson led them back to the road, but he was sure that he was on death’s door. The pain lancing through his head unsettled his stomach and he could barely draw in a full breath for the pain in his ribs.

They took the road north to the end of the pass, Lusson leading the horse at a walk but even that jostled Pikango’s injuries. The had reached the end of the pass when Pikango lost grip on his pack as he covered his mouth against his increasing nausea. The pack fell and the horse danced away from it.

“Pikango...”

Pikango sat with his hands clamped against his mouth and his eyes screwed shut. Seeing this, Lusson quickly helped him to the ground where he fell to his knees and was ill. He wiped at the hot tears which sprang to his eyes in response to the pain in his ribs and wrapped his arms around himself.

“It’s alright,” Lusson told him as he handed him a water skin, “this sometimes happens with head injuries.”

Pikango spat the taste of bile and blood from his mouth, but was unable to get his weeping under control, no matter how it hurt his ribs.

“I fear I’m dying,” he sobbed as he gripped the leather of Lusson’s fine coat.

“You’re injured and I know it’s painful, but you aren’t dying,” Lusson reassured him calmly.

“I’ve lied to you,” said Pikango in distress, “I’m not just travelling; I’ve run away.”

“That doesn’t matter right now. We need to return to the stable,” Lusson urged, helping Pikango onto the horse and returning his pack.

Pikango could barely hold himself upright any longer. Lusson got up behind him to hold him steady and urged to horse on. Pikango let his chin fall forward onto his chest and tried to suppress the urge to be sick again.

“Try not to sleep,” said Lusson.

Pikango tried for as long as he could, but he slumped forward anyway. When he awoke, it had grown dark. They had reached the stable once more, and Pikango shielded his eyes from the fire burning near the road. Lusson slid from the horse and hitched it just outside the stable. He reached a hand up to Pikango, who nearly collapsed as his feet touched the ground, fresh pain radiating from his ribs as Lusson put an arm around him to catch him.

Lusson pounded upon the door of the inn and Monkton appeared to answer it.

“You two are like a couple of bad rupees,” he said.

“Stow it, Monkton. Pikango is injured and I don’t have time for your shit.”

Even in his haze, Pikango was surprised to hear Lusson using foul language. Pikango kept his eyes nearly closed against the light in the inn as Lusson guided him to a bunk. Pikango stiffly pulled off his outerwear and tunic, handing them to Lusson.

As Idah piled pillows behind his back, Lusson wrapped his ribs, wincing at the bruises which blossomed there. Pikango rested drowsily back against the pillows as Lusson carefully wiped the dried blood from his hair and face with a warm cloth.

“I think between your Sheikah tunic and your Rito cuirass, your clothes may have saved your life,” said Lusson. 

“Rito...” Pikango recalled roughly, “I was saved by two Rito.”

“I didn’t see any Rito,” said Lusson.

“They caused the explosions.”

“Those were bomb arrows; the moblins must have had some.”

“I touched one’s wing,” Pikango insisted, his eyes welling with tears again, “I could feel the fragile bones beneath the feathers...a bird’s wing.”

“You hit your head very hard,” said Lusson gently, wiping an escaped tear with the cloth, “just rest and we can discuss everything later.”

As Lusson rose to return the supplies he had borrowed from Idah, Pikango recalled his half-confession as he had been certain he was dying. It seemed quite likely that Lusson would be eager to discuss why he had hired a runaway for such an esteemed position.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monkton seems pleasant to Link in his old age, but I think if he were feeling cornered, he might act a little more harshly...especially to fancy-pants Lusson. I actually started a one-shot where some OCs from ‘Age of Intolerance’ (Silda, Erie and Cyd) come to this dilapidated stable (years later, between the first and second expeditions with Kass) with a convoy to replace it with a Stable Association-style stable, so I drew heavily from descriptions (and a grouchier Monkton) of that semi-abandoned draft. I might go back to it if the mood strikes me, I’m very fond of those OCs.


End file.
